S.M. Stirling was born in France in 1953 to Canadian parents—although his mother was born in England and grew up in Peru. After that he lived in Europe, Canada, Africa, and the US and visited several other continents. Steve graduated from law school in Canada but had his dorsal fin surgically removed, and published his first novel (Snowbrother, Signet) in 1984. He became a full-time writer in 1988, the year of his marriage to Janet Moore of Milford, Massachusetts, who he met, wooed, and proposed to at successive World Fantasy Conventions. In 1995 they suddenly realized that they could live anywhere and decamped from Toronto, that large, cold, gray city on Lake Ontario, and moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico. Steve became an American citizen in 2004.
His latest books are Conan: Blood of the Serpent (Titan Books, December 2022) and To Turn the Tide (Baen Books, August 2023), the first in a new time-travel series with five Americans from 2032 dumped in 165 CE. His hobbies mostly involve reading—history, anthropology, archaeology, and travel, besides fiction—but he also cooks and bakes for fun and food. For twenty years he also pursued the martial arts, until hyperextension injuries convinced him that he was in danger of becoming the most disabled person in human history. Steve has been a judge for the Writers of the Future Contest since 2021.
About this story Steve tells us: “I was given an intriguing painting, the cover for this volume. I decided it was a prehistoric shaman contemplating the La Brea Tar Pits … and that gave me the first scene! The rest flowed from there.”
For more information, go to https://smstirling.com.
Well known for his colorful oil paintings, most often depicting strong women, Dan dos Santos’s work spans a variety of genres, including novels, comics, film, and video games. He has worked for clients such as Disney, Universal Studios, Activision, Boeing Aircraft, Scholastic Books, The Greenwich Workshop, Penguin Books, Random House, UpperDeck, Hasbro, DC Comics, and many, many more.
Dan has been the recipient of many awards. He is a Rhodes Family Scholarship winner, a five-time Hugo Award nominee for Best Artist, and has received both Gold and Silver Medals from Spectrum: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art. His illustrations have graced the #1 spot on the New York Times bestseller list numerous times and his covers are seen in bookstores in dozens of countries around the world. He has been an Illustrators of the Future judge since 2019.
Dan shared the following about this volume’s cover art.
“When I was tasked to create the cover for the newest volume of L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future, I knew I wanted to create something not just fantastic that lived up to previous covers, but I wanted to create something which specifically spoke to the history of this wonderful book and to both the Writers and Illustrators of the Future Contests.
“When artists Larry Elmore, Tom Wood (both cover artists for previous volumes) and I visited Los Angeles last year for the annual workshop and awards ceremony, we took a trip to the La Brea Tar Pits. Then I knew I had the inspiration I needed for my cover.
“Since their inception, the Writers and Illustrators of the Future Contests have called Los Angeles home, and what could be more LA than the Tar Pits!
“During our visit to the museum, I took lots of photos, enjoying the incredible amount of tusks and skeletons that archaeologists have dredged up from the depths of these ancient tar pits.
“For this cover piece, which I entitled Starcatcher, I envisioned a fictitious time in prehistoric LA, where the Chumash tribe, well known for their decorative face paint, live among an active tar pit.
“I’m honored to have been asked to create this cover, and hope that this image will elicit the same sense of wonder and imagination that the stories contained within this latest volume will undoubtedly hold for its readers.”